


Well I Can Dance With You Honey, Flirt A Little Maybe

by theangelsace



Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Developing Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 11:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6468628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theangelsace/pseuds/theangelsace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course, Thomas can't just tell his family that he's not seeing anyone like he has been for the past couple of months...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Well I Can Dance With You Honey, Flirt A Little Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was written for a prompt sent to me on tumblr by the lovely blaugrana-heart. 
> 
> Prompt: "Have you lost your damn mind"

One thing that Thomas had learnt since moving halfway across the country for university, was that even if they’re a few hundred miles away, family will still take every available opportunity to ask if you had a girlfriend yet. Even if they talked every other day, they still half expected for his answer to have changed in the short amount of time that had passed. After two months of trying to convince them that he was too busy trying to focus on his various assignments, and the couple of clubs he had joined, he finally relented and told them what they wanted to hear. Which had only led to a whole new set of questions, that had felt more like some form of interrogation, more than anything else. Somehow, though, the conversation had ended with him agreeing to bring his girlfriend home for a couple of days over the Christmas break.

Which was how Thomas managed to find himself sat in the common room, at half nine in the evening, trying to work out if there was anybody at all he could ask to pretend to be going out with for a few days. There was Teresa, of course, but the two of them already knew that they didn’t work as a couple, and even if she did agree, he doubted that the two of them could convince his family that they were dating. He thought about texting Brenda as well, the two of them shared a couple of the same lectures and had ended up working on a presentation together, when their lecturer, who they all referred to as ‘rat-man’ decided to choose who they would be working with, rather than letting do so themselves, like the young adults that they were. Still, Thomas had found the two of them could work really well together, and had even ended up with them becoming quite good friends, which led to a couple of brief moments of him wandering if there could possibly be something more there. Though he quickly put those thoughts to the back of his mind when he remembered what had happened with Teresa. Trouble, though, was that there wasn’t really anybody else he knew well enough to ask.

At that time in the evening, there was still large groups of students scattered across the room; some trying to desperately finish their essays before the deadlines started coming thick and fast. Whilst others were sat in their own little groups, talking loudly whilst drinking a pint or two. Thomas though, was one of the few people sat on their own, having decided to take the evening off from working on his own essays. There were a few faces across the room that he recognised from various lectures, but none of them he really knew well enough to go over and join, and he wasn’t even sure of the names of most of them in any case.

“Hello, shuck-face” he heard Minho say as he sat down next to Thomas, placing a bowl of chips and a drink down on the table in front of them, managing to break him out of his current train of thought. Minho, the guy he not only lived with, but who he also shared most of his lectures with, as well as the two of them also being in the running club together. Which had only happened because Minho had refused to leave him alone until he agreed; still he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that he actually quite enjoyed it.

“Hey, Min” he replied, all too familiar with the odd nicknames he came out with, especially when it came to himself, to be honest he was just happy to have a little bit of company after sitting there on his own for over half an hour. And, suddenly Thomas found himself with an idea that seemed so crazy, that it might just actually end up working “I need a favour” he said, before he managed to talk himself out of it. There might have been other people he could ask, but there was no one other than Minho that he knew well enough, and liked enough to do so.

“Just so long as you don’t need me to kill a man for you” Minho joked.

“No, no” Thomas assured, taking a few chips for himself, because it wasn’t all that strange for the two of them to share their food. “I just need you to come home with me for a couple of days over Christmas, meet my entire family and pretend you’re my boyfriend” he explained, and yeah when he heard it out loud it did sound a lot to ask.

“Right” Minho began slowly “Just one question, minor detail really, have you lost your damn mind?” he asked.

“Min, yes or no do you have your arm wrapped around the back of my shoulder right now?” Thomas asked in return.

“Yes” Minho answered, that was nothing new though. Nor was people coming up to them and asking how long they had been together.

“And the other week, during movie night what happened?” Thomas asked, even though the memories were still clear in his head.

“There wasn’t enough seats and we took it in turns to sit in each other’s laps” Minho replied, and Thomas could understand why it was that people kept mistaking them for a couple, especially when they spent half of their time flirting.

“And last week, didn’t our friends trick us into going on a blind date with each other?” he asked. The two of them had realised what was going on, when they had found themselves sat in the nice restaurant just off of campus, and their waitress had kept commenting on how nice it was to see such a nice young couple in there for a change. They had spent the rest of their evening thinking of ways to get back at Newt and Alby who were both still up, waiting for them to get back at the end of the night, for a few days they had let them believe that the whole thing  had been a disaster before finally putting them out of their misery.

“I was just impressed; they could keep their eyes off of each other long enough to notice us” Minho replied, he had known their two flatmates for longer than Thomas had, having gone to the same school, and according to Minho the two of them had been like that for years, before finally seeing sense “But, alright, I take your point” Minho agreed.

*****************************

The two of them spent the next week and a half going over the story they would be telling Thomas’ family. He figured that at least the parts about the two of them sharing most of the same lectures, and being in the same club were true. The rest of it though was whatever they could make sound believable in the little amount of time that they had.

“Our first date” Minho prompted, until that point they had kept the conversation away from what they were doing as much as possible, but one of them had to bring it up at some point, even if they didn’t want to. Because as the days had gone by this thing had started to feel more and more real, and Thomas had to keep telling himself that it was just pretend.

At the moment the two of them were sat side by side on the seats they had been lucky to find on the overcrowded train, which was no doubt full of people like them going home for the holidays. There were cups of coffee, and sandwiches set in front of them on the small fold out trays as the countryside rushed passed the window in a blur of blue and green.

“It was a month ago, you asked me to go to the society formal evening with you” Thomas began, picturing the evening in his mind, even though it was only a story. “And I thought you meant just as friends” he said, smiling, because if there was any way for him and Minho to get together, this was how he imagined it going.

“As the evening went on, people kept coming up to us and saying what a nice couple we made” Minho continued.

“Because, we went around for most of the evening holding hands, and you kept whispering in my ear” Thomas went on, and if he didn’t know that the two of them had only come up with all of this a few days ago, he would have believed it himself.

“And it wasn’t until we got back in you realised I meant as a date, and kissed me” Minho finished, smiles playing across both of their faces, and if Thomas didn’t know that Minho had only agreed to this as a favour to him he would have started to think that Minho had feelings for him, as well.

“I still can’t believe you asked me to do this” Minho said a few moments later, though there was still the sound of laughter to his voice. Thomas could see his point though, him asking Minho to pretend to be his boyfriend for a couple of days or so, when there had been this elephant in the room between them for the past few weeks now.

“I had to ask, you didn’t have to say yes” Thomas pointed out, though he was more relieved than he cared to admit when Minho had said yes.

“You could have at least warned me about how much detail your family is going to want” Minho replied, and yeah Thomas had to agree that he had a point.

“What can I say, they’re a curious bunch” Thomas said, shrugging his shoulder.

“You’re just lucky I love you” Minho said, smiling at Thomas, and he couldn’t help but believe him.

******************

It was early evening by the time they made it back to the three bed, terrace house that Thomas had grown up in. The thing about growing up in such a small town, was that you pretty much knew the names of every person there; not only that, but he had also grown up with his grandparents living just a couple of streets away, whilst his aunts, uncles and cousins were scattered over the rest of the town. And unless Thomas was very much mistaken, which he highly doubted, all of them would be there to greet them the second that they walked through the front door.

“All right, let’s get this over with” he said, resigning themselves to their fate of having to act like something they were never likely to be, because Thomas knew that Minho would only ever see him as a friend. Taking a breath, he pulled his keys out of his pocket. Both of them were carrying bags filled with clothes, and a few textbooks so that they could keep on top of things during their time off, though Thomas doubted that they would be put to much use.

“Here” Minho said, moving a step closer because maybe he could see how nervous Thomas had suddenly become, and laced their fingers together. Thomas looked down at their hands for a few seconds before giving Minho’s hand a squeeze, which he returned and Thomas had to convince himself that it was just for luck, but the look Minho was giving him was hard to ignore.

“We’re here” Thomas announced, as they walked into the hall, he quickly showed Minho where he could leave his stuff before the two of them went into the lounge. Sure enough, when they walked in, most of his family was there waiting for them, and to say that they were shocked to see Thomas walk in with Minho was an understatement.

“Hello, everyone” Thomas said, hand still in Minho’s “This is Minho, my boyfriend” he introduced to the unusually quiet group

“Minho, this is well, everyone” Thomas said, because that was a lot quicker than going over each individual person there “Well, apart from Aunt Paige” he said, after a quick head count

“Hello” Minho said to the group in front of them. “It’s so nice to meet all of you at last”

“And, you” Thomas mum said at last, walking over to the pair, hugging both of them “Thomas, a word?” she asked, not really giving him a choice in the matter, and even though he was reluctant to leave Minho alone with the rest of his family, he followed her into the kitchen

“Coffee, dear” was the first thing she said, once the two of them were alone, which Thomas politely declined “So you two…” she began, and Thomas could see how much she was struggling to ask what she wanted to without sounding too put out.

“Yes, mum me and Minho” he answered, smiling, because as far as this weekend went, things between them were real, after that though things would go back to how they were before and somehow he didn’t want that to happen.

“OK, dear. Well, he certainly seems like a nice young man” she agreed “Well you know what your nan always used to say” Nora added.

“Yeah” he said, it was something along the lines of first impressions being over in a few seconds, but lasting a lifetime.

They went back into the other room after that, to find Minho sat on the coffee table whilst everyone else in the room sat around the room, and listened whilst he talked about their relationship. Thomas stood in the doorway smiling as he listened to Minho talk, whilst his mum retook her seat, it took him a moment to recognise the story Minho was telling them, and it wasn’t one of the ones that they had come up with last week. Instead, it was something that had happened between them about six weeks ago, when they had spent the whole night talking, and had ended up falling asleep curled up together in the arm chair. Neither of them had mentioned it since, and Thomas had been sure that Minho had wanted to act as though nothing had happened, so that’s what he had done.

“But, you two didn’t get together that night?” Uncle Jasper asked

“No, not that night” Thomas answered, taking that moment to walk over and sit on the floor next to the coffee table, knowing he could get away with resting his head against Minho’s side

“That’s a shame” his great Aunt Marie began “That would have been so romantic” she said grasping her hands together. And perhaps he should have warned Minho that his eighty-three-year-old great aunt didn’t care who you were with just so long as there was a romantic story in there somewhere.

“It would have been yes” Minho agreed, putting his arm around the back of Thomas’ shoulders, though that was nothing new for the two of them. What was though, was when Minho pressed a kiss to the top of his head, and when he asked him later Thomas would lie and say that he did not blush, not even a little bit.

**************

The rest of the evening passed by fairly quickly as they shared stories of their relationship, some of it what they had come up with in the past week, the rest of it was the truth. Eventually though, once it was getting close to midnight the others started filtering out, back to their own homes, which left just them, his parents and younger brother Chuck who had fallen asleep in his chair about an hour ago.

“We’re going to go up” his dad said after a few moments

“OK, good night” Thomas said

“What about Chuck?” Minho asked

“It’s best to just leave him at this stage, dear” Nora said, the other two nodding in agreement. It never ended well when they had to wake Chuck up, only to get him to move to another room to sleep

“OK” Minho agreed, uncertainly “Goodnight” he said

“Good night, you two” his parents said, leaving them alone at last, bar his snoring brother.

“We should probably go to bed as well” Thomas suggested, and that would inevitably lead to the one thing he had been trying not to think about since Minho agreed to this

“Thomas, are you propositioning me?” Minho asked, half serious

“I… no… what?” Thomas spluttered, not entirely sure if Minho wanted him to be serious or not

“Well, if you were, I wouldn’t say no” Minho said, smiling at Thomas, who just stood there, staring at him in shock unable to speak. “Come on, it’s late let’s go to bed” he said, grabbing a hold of Thomas’s hand

“Really?” Thomas asked, once he was finally able to talk again.

“Really” Minho answered, once the two of them were actually alone and in his room, and from the way Minho was looking at him in that moment it was clear that he was being genuine.

The two of them were stood so close by that point, that Thomas could pretty much count each of Minho’s eyelashes. “You know” he began, suddenly nervous even though he come to realise over the past few days that this was what he wanted “They’ll be expecting us to kiss in front of them at some point” he said, and it was possibly the cheesiest thing he could have said, but he didn’t care.

“Well, then we better practice” Minho said, closing the last of the small amount of space between the two of them, and pressing his lips to Thomas’s own, it still took Thomas a few seconds to remember that he wasn’t actually dreaming and respond.

“I think we’re going to need a lot of practice” he said, once they pulled apart a few moments later, the feeling of Minho’s lips still on his own.

“I couldn’t agree more” Minho said, wrapping his arms around Thomas waist and pulling him close so that their bodies were pressed together. Thomas, in turn had his own arms wrapped around the back of Minho’s neck, and it just seemed so natural for the two of them.

“Good” Thomas said, and this time it was him that bought his lips to Minho’s.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah... this was supposed to be a drabble, but apparently I have absolutely no understanding of the word.


End file.
